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“Hey, Blue,” he says as he walks into her outstretched arms and wraps his skinny ones around her hips.

I searched the online dictionaries for blue but I didn't find the meaning that fits with the sentence. Does it simply mean Dear, Honey , etc?

Could you please explain it to me?

  • Note: The boy, all the time, calls his mother Blue.

The fuller text:

She and Melissa set the sweets on the table that’s been set up for the celebration, and a moment later, the bell rings. Kids spill from the second- and third-grade classrooms, and Hadley scans over the heads for Skipper.

He is the last to leave Mrs. Baxter’s room, ambling behind the others in the slow, distracted way he has. Her heart swells at the sight of him, the way it always does when she sees one of her kids after not seeing them for some time.

“Hey, Blue,” he says as he walks into her outstretched arms and wraps his skinny ones around her hips.

“Hey, Champ.” She kisses the top of his honey hair. He smells as he always does, of brown sugar and sweat, the result of eating maple Cream of Wheat for breakfast and of being an eight-year-old boy.

Hadley & Grace by Suzanne Redfearn

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  • @fev - Wrong way around - the boy says this, not the woman.
    – MikeB
    Commented Jan 22, 2021 at 11:23
  • Unless the answer is somewhere within the pages of the story, it's anyone's guess, but it is clearly a nickname. (It has a capital letter and is used not only in directly addressing her but also in phrases like "Blue and I..." - so it can't be equated with a term of endearment like "dear" or "darling", which are rarely used in such a way and also rarely take capitals.) It is presumably related in some way to one of the dictionary definitions of "blue", but we don't know which one (unless it's in the story somewhere).
    – rjpond
    Commented Jan 22, 2021 at 15:17

1 Answer 1

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It's a nickname, like "Champ" in the next sentence and "Skipper" earlier in the quotation.

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  • 1
    But what does "Blue" actually mean? "Champ" and "Skipper" are obvious to me, but not Blue.
    – MikeB
    Commented Jan 22, 2021 at 11:24
  • On the first page of the story, it mentions a women with vivid blue eyes. If it's the same woman, it could be a reference to her eye colour.
    – rjpond
    Commented Jan 22, 2021 at 11:25
  • @ rjpond They're different.
    – Peace
    Commented Jan 22, 2021 at 11:35
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    @Mike Brockington May be because She is sad as the author writes: "Hadley almost manages a smile. Despite having a month to get used to the idea of Skipper leaving, she is no more ready to accept it than she was the day her sister called with the news she was getting married and therefore ready to take on the responsibility of being Skipper’s mom."
    – Peace
    Commented Jan 22, 2021 at 11:43
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    I'm aware of that meaning of 'blue' but it seems particularly cruel to use it as a nickname (for that reason) and I've never personally come across it used that way. This reads to me like a fairly permanent nickname. Also, I've come across (a few) soldiers being called "Blue" as a nickname, and I'm positive that they would not do so for this reason, but have no idea what the core reason is.
    – MikeB
    Commented Jan 22, 2021 at 20:44

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